Mickey Leland
Twenty years ago (this year) when Texas Congressman Mickey Leland’s plane went down in the mountains of Ethiopia on August 7 killing him and everyone else on board, Leland’s singular cause – world hunger took a hit as well. Of course there was the normal exultation to keep Leland’s memory alive by working for his causes (and many did), but the missing piece of the puzzle - Leland, his presence, his determination, his force as a human being, was gone. Some in the media understand the loss of Leland even today.
So of course now, as world hunger surges amidst the global recession and the shortcomings of foreign aid, the world is crying out for a champion like Mickey Leland to give the cause legs again, like in the 1980’s.
''I am as much a citizen of this world as I am of my country,” Leland barked once back in those days. “To hell with those people who are critical of what I am able to do to help save people's lives.”
This was Leland. He was responding to criticism that he spent too much time trying to help other nations and not his own. Leland, born and raised on the poor, tough streets of Houston’s Fifth Ward, wasn’t having it.
Today’s statistics on world hunger call out for Leland.
According to reports this past summer from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Program (FAO), 1.02 billion people are suffering from hunger and starvation in the world today (nearly 17 percent of the world’s population). This is a record number of people. In addition, FAO estimates that 100 million people will be pushed into hunger and poverty this year as a direct result of recessionary conditions. Of course, Africa, the continent has highest levels of hunger and human devastation.
Bread for the World, an international organization devoted to the cause of fighting world hunger, reported this summer that three million children under the age of five die each year from hunger. In the United States, the country where people throw food out as if it were a religious practice, over 11 million children live in homes where someone has to skip meals so the family can make ends meet. Home grown hunger (in the U.S.) remains an issue that is being ignored for the most part by the government.
The summer meeting of the G-8 countries in Italy did result in a commitment from the member nations to commit $20 billion to poor nations to develop their agricultural sectors. This is good because it is aid but also helps the countries help themselves (if it happens). However, three years ago in Scotland, some of these same countries pledged billions of funds for Africa where hunger is severe but obligations were not met
As for Leland, the champion of this cause as a politician, his arrival as an international player in 1978 was preceded by a career as a Texas civil rights advocate and state legislator. When the great Barbara Jordan’s seat in the 18th District of Texas opened up in 1978, Leland ran for it, and was elected. Leland immediately began to fight for his causes - most notably, world hunger.
By 1983, after years of struggle, Leland was able to establish the House Select Committee on Hunger in the U.S. Congress. The committee, which he chaired, was instrumental in providing $800 million to Ethiopia as a desperate famine began ravishing the country. He took a contingent of U.S. governmental officials to Ethiopia during the crisis in 1984 a year before Michael Jackson and all that famous cadre of rock stars of America recorded “We are the World” and ultimately put the plague on the map.
Leland tried to help other poor nations too; he visited Asia, and the Caribbean regularly, and by his own admission, his work in the world sometimes caused him to neglect the congressional district he represented. But he never lost his focus.
"I am now an activist on behalf of humanity everywhere,” he told Jacqueline Trescott of the Washington Post in 1985, “whether it is in Ethiopia ... South Africa ... Chile ... in any part of the world where people are desperate and hungry for the freedoms and rights deserve as human beings.”
His dedication has left a legacy. The Mickey Leland International Hunger Fellows Program sends fellows every year to countries all over the world to fight hunger, on the ground, and on the policy level. Texas Southern University, his alma mater, maintains The Mickey Leland Center on Hunger and Peace. It includes a website, archival material, and internship programs.
But it would be so nice to have Leland around right now to get loud about world hunger. President Barack Obama has much on his plate; he can’t be out front on every issue. Mickey Leland, if he were around, would be more than happy to take this one on and make the media and lawmakers sing his tune.
